Wordorigins.org

50 Common Misconceptions

Dave Wilton, Thursday, May 23, 2013

This type of debunking is badly needed, although I don’t know how good the research team at Mental Floss is. They do get the Neil Armstrong explanation wrong. (He did indeed intend to say “a small step for a man,” but he actually said, “a small step for man.” It wasn’t a transmission problem that masked the “a.” So all those people who have been “misquoting” him have actually been correct. Armstrong claimed that it was a transmission problem for a while, but eventually admitted he screwed up the statement. Not that anyone blames him. It’s amazing that in all the excitement he didn’t make any bigger mistakes. Here’s The Onion’s take on the historic moment (NSFW).)

But this earlier video from Mental Floss on grammar and usage mistakes is horrible. It’s just unsupported peevery:

Do you think that Ring Around The Rosie makes reference to the Black Death? Or that the whole nine yards refers to WWII machinegun ammo belts? Or that Eskimos have 500 words for snow? If so, you need the Word Myths book. Find out more.